1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus and a toner cartridge used for the same, and particularly to an electrophotographic image forming apparatus for forming an image by a toner supplied from a detachable toner cartridge and also to a toner cartridge used for the same.
2. Description of the Background Art
An image forming apparatus for forming an image with the use of electrophotography is frequently and widely used, such as in a copying machine, a printer, and a facsimile, since a high-quality image can be formed with simple operations and the apparatus is easy to maintain and manage.
A general electrophotographic image forming apparatus mainly includes a photoconductor drum for forming an electrostatic latent image, a developing device for developing the electrostatic latent image, a transfer device for transferring a toner image to a recording medium such as a sheet, and a fixing device for fixing the toner image onto the recording medium.
A toner and sheets to be consumed can be added by a user when depleted, but toner, which is composed of extremely light and fine particles, may be scattered in the air and may dirty the user's hand, at the time of adding to the image forming apparatus.
Therefore, in recent years, a method of replacing a toner cartridge per se that stores toner so that the toner particles are not scattered in the air, i.e., a method of unloading an empty toner cartridge from an image forming apparatus and then loading a new toner cartridge into the image forming apparatus, is mostly used.
Generally, in a toner cartridge, a toner discharging port is formed in a portion of the toner cartridge so as to be an outlet for the toner stored in the toner cartridge, and the toner discharging port is tightly sealed by a film seal member until the toner cartridge is loaded into an image forming apparatus.
This prevents the fine toner particles from leaking from the toner cartridge due to vibration during transport.
When the toner cartridge becomes empty and incapable of forming an image, the user unloads the empty toner cartridge from the image forming apparatus and replaces the empty toner cartridge with a new toner cartridge.
At this time, the user is required to load the new toner cartridge into the image forming apparatus after unsealing the new toner cartridge by removing the seal member from the new toner cartridge. As a result, an inexperienced user is confused about removing the seal member, and therefore downtime (inoperable time) of the image forming apparatus increases.